Pretoria - Shocked and taken aback was how the Department of Social Development described its reaction to reports of the severe beating of three boys at a state-run rehabilitation centre last week.
The three are said to have been beaten by security guards and care workers and left injured and traumatised.
Department spokesman Dr Sello Mokoena said on Tuesday that staff at the Dr Fabian and Florence Ribeiro Treatment Centre had been tasked with the responsibility to care for and ensure the safety of those in the facility.
“The level of violence seen here is unacceptable,” he said.
He spoke about the events on the eve of Heritage Day last week, when the three boys, aged between 16 and 17, were apparently caught escaping from the Cullinan centre.
He said reports from the management were that two had already scaled the fence and were on the run when guards chased and caught up with them. The third had not yet gone over the fence, he said.
“That is where the beatings started, where the young men were kicked and punched and hit with belts and batons,” he said.
The centre provides in-patient care for young addicts and children in conflict with the law and is run by the Gauteng Department of Social Development.
The incident went unreported until the manager arrived back on Wednesday afternoon, to find the parent of one of them having come in to find his son severely injured.
The father, of a 16-year-old, told the Pretoria News on Tuesday of the shock of discovering that his son had been severely beaten, and questioned why parents had not been informed.
“They were left alone with their injuries, and could have walked around with internal bleeding and broken bones without anyone knowing,” said the father, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his teenage son.
He explained that when his son had realised his addiction to drugs, he had approached his father and asked for intervention, and he had turned to the department for a solution.
According to the father, his son was an innocent bystander and had been beaten together with the other two to discourage future escapers.
He said whatever the case might have been, they as parents should have been called and told of any problem with their sons, instead of staff taking matters into their hands.
After learning of the incident he had arrived at the centre and picked his son up, and opened a case of assault with the police.
Three security guards were arrested and charged with assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, for which they appeared in the Cullinan Magistrate’s Court on Monday and were granted R500 bail each.
Mokoena said on Tuesday that three care workers had been suspended, and an investigation was under way.
He said the department would tighten security at the centre, but would also make sure security staff was properly screened before taking up posts at the facility.
The boy’s father said while his son’s physical scars were starting to heal, the emotional ones were manifesting themselves more every day.
That they could beat the boys so much, in a society which frowned upon parents hitting their own children, was shocking to the boys’ parents. The father said he was planning to open a civil suit against the centre.